New York Times article preview
The New York Times previewed the upcomming U.S.-China Forum on the Arts and Culture in “American Cultural Group to Visit China”
This is not your average cultural exchange. There are no obscure acrobatic troupes and no awkward high school students.
Yo-Yo Ma will play the cello. Alice Waters will cook. Joel Coen will chat about “True Grit,” and Meryl Streep will do a reading.
The trip, sponsored and organized by Asia Society and the Aspen Institute, will send 14 notable cultural figures from the United States to Beijing for five days of discussions and performances starting Nov. 14. Other participants include the writers Amy Tan and Michael Pollan, the dancer and producer Damian Woetzel, and the opera director Peter Sellars, among others. Chinese taking part include Ge You, one of the country’s biggest movie stars, and Bai Yansong, a prominent TV news anchor.
“Why don’t we get along?” Orville Schell, the Arthur Ross director of Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations and the main architect of the project, said of the United States and China. “It’s not just an issue of policy. The Chinese are formal and ritualistic in their encounters. Americans often feel thwarted, that they can’t break through the rigidity of their positions.”
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